Runaway
by Roseprincess1
Summary: Set in the same time frame as If That's What it takes. Wheeljack searches for Alyssa in her home state. The Dinobots show up to help and havoc ensues.13th in the Angel series. Focuses on Wheeljack an Alyssa.FINALLY! FINISHED! Sorry for the wait folks! Cho
1. Chapter 1

Authors Notes: thanks for waiting for the next one. This takes place at the same time as "If Thats What it Takes". Hope you all like it.

RP1

Leagal Stuff: I dont own the TF's. Only doing this for amusement, so please dun sue.

Runaway: Prolog

I knew that the two of them were standing there watching me leave. I knew that I should go back and ask some one for help. I knew that just like every single Autobot would do the best they could to help Prime get his Angel back, they would also help me. I knew all of these things and still I hit the accelerator and tore my way out of the desert leaving them behind.

Prime would understand what I was doing. But being who he was there was no way that any of those under his command would ever do anything except insist that they be allowed to help him in his search. My self on the other hand, I was important but no where near as much as Optimus. Thankfully that granted me some autonomy that he would never know, and that I was grateful for.

To be perfectly honest I knew that I had to get my self as far away from that evil monster as possible. I have never in my life been compelled to do what I wanted to do to him. I have been labeled as easy going and fun loving. Told time and time again by those that I work with and by those I love that I was almost impossible to anger. Dr. Archevil found a way to anger me that morning.

It's hard for me to believe that what he had done did not register with Optimus. But then again, Prime strives to see the best in the vilest of people. So it would never have occurred to him that a human could do something like that to another human being. Maybe I have a darker side, maybe I don't have the faith in people that Prime has.

The moment that miserable excuse for a scientist mentioned the girls, I saw it. It was a leer of deep and perverse satisfaction. It was a look that spoke volumes to me and told me all I really needed to know about what had taken place. It was something that made Nine million human years of war boil to the surface of my energon and explode. I wanted to kill him. I wanted his body crushed underneath my foot so that I would know for certain that he would never, EVER be able to hurt anyone that way ever again.

I knew that man was evil, only someone who was utterly with out morals could invent the Hypno-chips in the first place. What I didn't know was that he was perverted monster. The type of monster that would look at someone innocent and beautiful and see only something he could get amusement out of.

So I left, I left and headed out. At first like I said, I just needed to get as far away from the place as I could. I spent two nights just sitting at a truck stop trying to calm down and come to terms. Then I began to wonder about what we had been told. The girls had been brainwashed into thinking that we were dead.

So what would Alyssa do if she had thought that I was dead? She would run, not out of weakness but out of a need to keep her self from hurting anyone else in her misery. The issue was finding out where the woman that I loved had gone.

That would turn out to be the easy part. Like any one who had lost someone that they loved I had a feeling that she would go back to the place she felt the safest. She would go some where that she loved and would try her best to get away from the pain. She would go home.

And so that's where I'm at now, making my way across the country and headed to Texas. I didn't know what to expect or what I was going to find there in the long run. All I could think of as I drove away was that there had to be a chance of me finding Alyssa some how. That she was still alive, that I knew deep in my spark that if she had truly been gone I would sense it. She was out there and I would find her. I would find her and I would make those that had caused her to runaway from me pay for what they had done. I hoped and wished that Prime would find his lover as well and that all would be well. But what I wanted most was to do this one on my own. To prove to my self that I WOULD be there when she needed me and that I would find my little Runaway.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Well folks sorry for the long lay over. Life got endlessly complicated after the holidays, and ive been a touch distracted. any how here's the newest from my corner of the TF universe. Hope you all like it.

RP1

Legal Stuff: I dont own the TFs OR the song, just borrowing them both for a bit of fun. No profit intended from any of this. Please dont sue me.

RP1

Runaway: Part 1

So I had made my way down to her home state and now I had no idea just where to go or what to do to go about finding her. So I did the only thing that I could do and went back to her family to see if they had seen her. What I found when I got there wasn't what I was expecting. Instead of the family full of life and love that I had met several months ago, I found a house in mourning. Something told me that I was the person that the tears and demonstration was for.

This meant that seeing me alive was the last thing that they would believe, so I did the best I could to get some information by just staying there in my alt-mode and doing the best recon I could manage.

What I eventually saw was the girl's father walk out into the yard. A few moments later another of her plethora of relatives joined him and they had the following discussion.

"So there's still no sign of her?" The female relative asked.

"Nothing, not since that one night she stayed here," He shook his head, "Something was wrong with her, she wouldn't just wonder off for no reason. Just take off and leave here."

"There must have been more to what happened than what she said."

Her father shook his head again, "What, hasn't she told us enough? That Jack's dead."

"She really did love him," the female relative sighed, "It's horrible, it's just plain horrible."

"I know," Her father continued, "but there's nothing we can do to help her unless she comes back to us."

So that answered that question for me. She had come to her home but she had left. Apparently she had literally just vanished after being there for just one day. So this was the proverbial dead end, but it gave me an idea of where to go. She had been here in this town and that meant that she would have left others.

This left me to go out and go hunting for other clues that she had been here some where. This was where I got another surprise, the surprise being the truck that had once belonged on the farm. It was about three miles from her house and it looked for all intents and purposes abandoned. Granted it was locked up, and secured so no one would be able to get into the thing, but it was just sitting there looking like another old beat up truck. This was what I had been looking for, some direction to where the girl had gone.

I had my first clue from her family; she had been in this town and had spent at least one night with them. Now I had a second marker, the truck. If a beautiful woman abandons a truck in the middle of a big city, someone is bound to notice. Someone had to have noticed and that meant that someone would tell me what they had seen. So I transformed back into my robot mode and changed down to human size. I had my hologram projector with me and I was able to make myself look at least passably human. I had just finished this and was looking for a way into the truck when someone else noticed me. He looked at first like your basic street thug, on closer inspection though you could see that there was more to this man than what he first came off as.

"Whatcha doing there Mister?" He asked as I hovered over the truck.

"I'm looking for the girl that owns this, or was driving it at least," I pressed my face against the glass, "but this thing looks like it's been here for a couple of days at least."

"You're really looking for the girl?" He suddenly changed from the thug to something else and I realized what he was.

"Yes Officer," I told the undercover cop, "I'm looking for her, she's my fiancée."

The man blinked at me and then grinned because I had figured out he was a cop. He dropped the rest of the act and held out his hand.

"Nice to meet you sir," He told me, "If you were just someone looking to take the truck, there's no way you would have been able to spot me for a cop."

"That's probably the truth," I admitted, "No I'm not a thug or a robber or anything else, just a man with a broken heart."

"Did she run off on you?" He suddenly got a stern look on his face.

"Not at all," I started to choke up slightly as I some how managed to get this out, "She was kidnapped sir."

The man's eyes got wide and he stared at me, "Wait a second? Kidnapped? That's not what she told us…"

"What did she tell you?" I felt my hologram flush in anger just like a human would, the thing being programmed to correctly respond to my emotions, "What that I was dead? Murdered right in front of her? Well I'm not! I'm alive, and I'm looking for her so I can fix the damage that was done to her mind by the SOB that took her from me."

The cop's face softened a bit and he shook his head at me, "Hey, Mister, I'm just looking out for that poor lil' girl."

"And I'm grateful that there are people like you on this world," I shook my head at him, "but I NEED to find her sir."

"I don't know if I can help you find her, but I can at least point you in the right direction." The cop replied.

"Oh?"

"Yah," He continued, "She looked awful, so I did the only thing I could do at the time. I took her and I checked her into the local ER. I was hoping to come back and talk to her later, but when I got back there she was gone."

I could almost feel my own optics light up as I was now taking the man much more seriously. "Could you tell me what hospital you took her too?"

The cop nodded at me and he motioned for me to follow him into the night.

"Lemme get my car sir," He nodded and I moved around the corner to get my "Car".

Moments later, my hologram at the wheel, I proceeded to follow this officer of the law into the town. I was hoping that there would be something that would tell me where my girl had gone. What I found didn't exactly turn out to be what I was looking for but it did provide me with some more information. Unfortunately it also managed to confirm the worst of my fears.

The cop took me to the closest hospital and led me in to talk to the staff. All of them seemed really friendly and acted like they genuinely wanted to help me. So when I produced the picture of Alyssa and held it out to them, all of them gathered around it and started talking amongst themselves for several minutes.

"SO!" I was starting to get more than a little bit frazzled by this point.

"Well sir, this girl was in here." The head doctor nodded.

"And you're sure that's her?" I asked as I held the photo out to the clerk in the emergency room.

"That's the girl alright," The other woman who was there nodded, "She was here about three nights ago. She was in terrible shape."

I braced myself for what I knew as coming and then I did what I had to. I asked just what the woman meant by that. What did "Terrible Shape" refer to? She was able to answer me with the alacrity that comes only from someone that has worked in this profession too long and has seen it too many times.

"Would you mind being a little more specific about what you mean?"

"Well, she was emotionally about to fall apart," She sighed, "So young too. Then there was evidence that she'd been assaulted."

"By assaulted do you mean…" I couldn't bring myself to actually say it.

The doctor caught the look on my face and nodded, "I'm afraid so sir. There are lots of tests we can run to confirm it."

"And," I prompted.

"And, 99.9 of them came back positive," He shook his head, "I really am sorry."

"So what happened after you took those tests?"

The man thought for a second and then continued, "Well we have to report all of that kind of thing to the police and do the evidence kits. We did all of those things and then we checked her into the hospital. It was pretty clear to everyone that she was in no shape mentally to be allowed to go."

"So she's here?" I could almost feel myself start to perk up.

The man's face dropped and I could tell what was going to come next.

"No she isn't," He informed me, "She stayed for one night but when she found out that we wanted to do some tests on her for some reason she went into a panic."

Now the nurse spoke up again, "It was like she was scared of us, she was afraid we were going to hurt her somehow."

"She might very well have been," I shot back.

"Do you mind giving us some background on this young lady?" The doctor wanted to know.

"Like what?"

"Well," He thought, "Well first off for some reason she kept on insisting that there had been something happen up north. An attack or battle of some kind, something that had to do with the military from the sounds of it."

"Go on," I prompted.

"Well we ran all of the checks that we could manage with the military from here and there wasn't anything that happened in that part of the country."

"No there wouldn't have been," I confirmed for him, "Unfortunately this girl was most likely kidnapped by …enemy forces and subjected to … mistreatment by them."

"I see," The man nodded, "That would explain both conditions then."

He paused for a second and looked me over then continued. "So you've been sent by the military to find her?"

"No," I shook my head, "She's my fiancée."

"Oh my God," this came from the woman who was with the doctor, "She thinks…Who would do that to a person?"

"Some one that can be termed completely vile ma'am," I told her, "Someone completely vile."

"Well," The Doctor managed to pull him self together, "I can give you what information we have on her sir. Though I would like to see some ID, because honestly from what the young lady told us, you don't look like her fiancée'."

I had to smile over that one. Alyssa was not in any shape form or fashion afraid or ashamed of our relationship. To wit, if she were in a situation like this she would probably just come right out and tell the people that were looking after her the truth about the two of us. I had to admire that in the woman, which just led me right back into my thoughts of how much I cared about the girl.

"Let me guess?" I smiled, "She told you that she was engaged to a transformer?"

"How…" The woman asked.

"Its very simple ma'am," I kept grinning, "I know that's what she would say because like I said before," I stopped here to switch off my holo-projector, "I AM her fiancée."

Every jaw that was in the room belonging to the human staff hit the floor as all of them stared at me. I don't know if it was because I turned out to be telling the truth or just because I turned out to be a shrunk down transformer. Whichever it was, I seemed to have allayed their doubts for now and they were suddenly more than willing to let me have whatever information I wanted about my missing Alyssa.

An hour later I had a stack of papers and more photos, not to mention more information about what had happened to her than I had ever wanted. This left me with the oddest sensation, feeling that I had ever had in my long existence. So strange that I set out driving around the city until I could define what it was that was suddenly haunting me.

It took me nearly two hours of simmering to finally de code what I was feeling. It was rage, pure undiluted rage. That was when I realized I was on the exit out of the city. I was on the exit and I was faced with a choice that I had to make. What I wanted to do more than anything right then, was to drive back to Portland and wring the life out of The "Doctor". The monster had no idea what he had taken from her, what his selfish lust had cost the woman that I had given my heart to.

Alyssa had promised me something and had sworn to keep that promise until she and I found a way to fulfill it. Angel had made a similar promise to Prime and now I had in my hands the proof that there was no way that promise could ever be fulfilled by either of them. If it had happened to one of them the chances were it had happened to both. Which left me there wanting nothing more that to see that… thing that had done this to them as dead in reality as I was sure both of the girls must have felt inside.

I could have very easily driven back up and taken the revenge that I so desperately wanted right then. But I had something else, I did have a clue to where she was going and I had to follow it now before the trail got cold. It was my only possible chance of finding her without calling in the whole Autobot army. I had no desire to do that. So right then it came down to what did I want more, the girl or my revenge?

It probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life. Harder than the whole war, harder than all of those classes back home, harder than coming to the realization that I did love this woman. Then again the choice between instinct and thought always is.

In the end I chose instinct. I chose to act on my feelings and pay the price for them later. Perhaps that choice would doom my spark to the pit for the rest of eternity but that seemed like a worthy price to pay right then. I chose to do the only possible thing I could do. In the end, there really wasn't any choice at all.

I chose to take the left exit and headed off to the Enterprise car rental services.

I chose to go and find Alyssa.


	3. Chapter 3

Runaway: Part 2

I had made my choice to forego giving the "Doctor" what he so richly deserved for the moment and put finding my lost Alyssa at the top of my priority list. As I drove off to the car rental place that I had been told she'd gone looking for I realized that my communicator had a delayed message blinking on it for me. I had shut the thing off last night when I was doing my best to try and look human. Now the thing was having a fit and so I finally decided to answer it.

What the message turned out to be was an alert from the Ark that Megatron, with the help of every single gestalt in his employee had broken out of the brig in the Ark. I had to blink over that. This was the first time the silver slime ball had ever had the sheer brass to try something like this. Apparently he was so completely convinced that he had us right where he wanted us. Turns out that he wouldn't even bother to notice me, though I think eventually he would have. He probably would have been more so inclined to notice me as well if his pet mad scientist hadn't been cooling his heels in the local hoosegow back in Portland. So once again, not having the fame and infamy of Optimus proved to be my saving grace, I would solve this one on my own or not at all.

At least that was the assumption I was operating under as I pulled up to the rental car place. This time I didn't even bother with the disguise. I simply transformed and then shrank my self down to the appropriate size. I then proceeded to march in and make both myself and my position known.

"S'cuse me," I snagged the first person I saw.

It turned out to be some poor kid who must have just started there, because I swear I think I made him almost pee his pants.

"Yessir," he stammered.

"Look kid, could you go and scare me up one of your managers? I have something that I really need to ask them, and I don't want to waste time on one of the grunts okay?"

He kept looking at me for a second like he'd done the other in his drawers as Alyssa would have said, and finally scuttled off into the back of the place. A few moments later another man appeared and he seemed much more inclined to be professional and try his best to help me.

"Yes sir," He held out his hand to me, "Is there anything I can do for you Mr.?"

"Wheeljack," I told him, "And as a matter of fact there is something that you can do." I pulled out the photo of Alyssa, "You can tell me if this girl showed up here in the last few days and rented a car."

He took the photo from me and studied it for a few moments and then handed it back to me.

"First off sir," He asked, "Would you mind telling me just what you are looking for this young lady for?"

"Not at all," I shot back with his own mannerisms, "She happens to be my fiancée, and I would very much like to find her before someone in the employee of the Decepticons tries to kill her again."

Okay so that was probably way too blunt for the poor guy, what can I say? I wanted to get the point across to this guy that I needed to find her as soon as he was willing to give me some information.

Actually he handled it pretty well. After his first flop, he got himself under control and put the "Ultimate professional" mask back where it was.

"Well sir," He motioned me over to the computers, "As a matter of fact the young lady in question did indeed come in here to rent a car. I believe her name was Alyssa?"

"That's right," I nodded. "Keep going."

"She rented a simple enough car with her card number," He tapped a few more keys, "And according to this the car was returned to one of our offices up in Austin just a day or so ago."

"So what you telling me is this, she got a car from you guys and took it to Austin?" I desperately wanted confirmation.

"I can fax this photo up to our office up there and have the manager confirm that this was indeed the person that returned it to them if you would like."

"Trust me Mister," I nodded, "I'd like."

So I handed over the photo of Alyssa and proceeded wait while he called the other office and informed them that he needed visual confirmation of the person who had returned the white car to them. The man then proceeded to hang up the phone and send the photo through the fax. A few moments later the phone rang again and it was the man from the other office on the line. I was about at my wits end with these people so I wasn't expecting them to drop my shining grace, my best chance of finding her in my lap.

"Sir?" The manager looked up at me.

"Yes?"

"I think you need to hear what the manager of our Austin branch has to say," He clicked the phone over to speaker, "Go on George. Please repeat again what you just told me."

"I said that the girl in this photo not only brought the car back but she started working here about a day or so later."

"WHAT!" I felt my jaw hit the bottom of my own mask.

"That's right." The tinny voice continued, "She came in and dropped the car off. We were hiring preps at the time and she looked like she needed work pretty bad. So I gave her the job."

"She's there?" I gasped, "Alive?"

"Uh… yah the last time I checked she was alive. I mean today is her day off but she should be back in tomorrow if you'd like to call back and talk to her, sir."

"No that's fine," I almost stuttered, "I …uhhh, I'll be up there to talk to her in a few days. Just do me one favor and don't tell her that anyone is looking for her okay?"

"Uhh… sure mister, if you say so." He sounded sarcastic.

"I mean it damnit!" I snarled at the speaker phone, "Don't you tell her that I'm coming!"

"Okay! Okay! Geeze," The person on the other line shot back, "I promise not to tell her, just get off my case already!"

The other office hung up and I thanked the manager of the one I was in for his help. He seemed kinda glad to see me going, but honestly I can't say that I really blamed him. I did make a bit of a fuss.

So now I had proof of where she was and what had happened to her once she had been let loose from the Decepticons. What I wasn't expecting was for help to show up and "Assist" me in looking for my lost Alyssa.

Thinking about it seriously though I should have known it was only a matter of time before they got loose and came looking on their own. They seem to care about the girl in question almost as much as I do. So it really shouldn't have come as a shock when I started back through town and found all six of the Dinobots there giving the cop that had helped me out utter hell.

What possessed me to drive back by the truck, I will probably never know. But for some reason I did and that when I saw it. The officer that had pointed out the way to the emergency room for me was now at the mercy of a pack of shrunk down but somehow still huge, miffed, metal, Dinosaurs. What was happening was that he was in the process of hanging from Slash's jaws by the shirt-tail, while the others bent down and demanded that he tell them what he knew.

"You no make sense," Grimlock prodded, "What you mean, you already told us?"

"We just get here!" Swoop shot back.

"Me Slag say leave him here and go find Aly."

Grimlock stamped his foot and shut the Triceratops up, "NO GO! This guy know where Aly is! He have Aly's truck." The dino turned back to the terrified cop, "Now tell! WHERE ALY!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" The cop cried, "Honestly I don't know! I told the white one last night that I took her to an emergency room! Then they showed him where she went after that! That's all I know, I swear, I swear!"

Slash opened her mouth and dropped him on to his butt, "Slash not trust this person. Maybe he work for Decepticons, maybe he no tell us where to find Aly 'cus he want keep her."

"TALK!" Snarl shouted in his face, "Talk now! WHERE ALY?"

The terrified cop proceeded to scuttle back only to bump into Sludge's feet and find a rather nasty grin on his face, as if Sludge were the first Apatosaurus thinking on reconsidering the strictly herbivore diet.

"Where Aly?" was all Sludge had to say.

"HEY!" I called.

That proceeded to stop all six of them in their tracks and they all stormed over to where I was.

"WHEELJACK!" Slash nosed up to me. "We come! We help find Aly!"

"How did all of you … Get out?" I had to ask.

"Big bots come," Grimlock told me, "Smash Mountain. We leave, come help Wheeljack find Aly."

I blinked at all of them, I should have been pissed off that they chose to run off and leave the base possibly unguarded. However it actually meant a lot to me to see that they really did care about the girl as much as I so all I could do at that point was shake my head at them.

"You guys are something else, you know that?"

Slash turned back and then proceeded to turn around again with the near comatose cop in her teeth a second time.

"Him know something." She told me in a muffled voice.

"Uh Yah," I did my best to not laugh at the poor cop, "Yah I talked to him already. He actually told me where to go so that they could help me find her."

"And?" Grimlock asked.

"And they told me where they think she might be." I finished.

Slash promptly dropped the cop back on to the pavement for a third time and beamed at me.

"Aly okay?" She gasped, "Aly alive?"

"I don't know if she's okay Slash," I told her, "But I do know she's alive, and I know where we can go and find her."

"Then we come with," Slash told me, "Me Slash never let bad man get hands on Aly again."

"Me Swoop say like Slash," The Tero nodded, "Protect Aly better from now on."

"Me Snarl going to get bad person when we get home," Snarl added, "but first things first. We go find Aly, we make sure she alright."

"Me Grimlock second motion," He nodded, "We go find Aly now."

Sludge and Slag were just as enthusiastic in their assertions that we had to go right now and track down the missing girl. Like I said, I should have been ticked off that they not only had left the base unguarded but had deliberately disobeyed me and come to help me do what I had told everyone else in no uncertain terms that I planned on doing myself. However I just couldn't find it in my spark to stay mad at them. As silly as the big fellows can be some times, they are also as endearing as hell when they want. It was also nice to know that I wasn't alone. I had wondered why no one else had followed me, though I realized that most of them were trying to respect my wishes now. These guys however operate on a whole different level and what might seem right and proper to someone, seemed foolish and put upon to these guys. The Dinobots were pure emotion and it was kind of refreshing to see that in someone, when all the rest of us tried our hardest to keep that part of ourselves hidden.

So now I had four companions in my search for Alyssa. I had my traveling companions and I knew where to look. There was just the small problem we had to deal with right now. The poor traumatized police officer.

The guy had been the one that had pointed me in the right direction to begin with so, as funny as it was to me, I couldn't let the poor guy just go after being subjected to the treatment.

"Hey are you okay?" I asked after I finally managed to get him to come around.

"What the HECK are those things?" he asked me.

"Those would be the Dinobots," I looked as embarrassed as I could manage, "Seems like I have some unexpected help in looking for my missing girl."

The cop got to his feet and looked over them. Now that they were no longer trying to ferret information out of him, and all of them were standing there as docile as you can get six metal dinosaurs to be, he seemed to calm down a lil'.

"No kidding?" He actually managed a weak laugh. "Well I have to tell you one thing Mr. Wheeljack. With those things with you, there's no one on this planet any how that's going to be willing to try and keep that girl away from you."

I smiled at him, "I'd like to think that sir. I am sorry that they gave you a scare, they honestly meant no harm. I think they were just trying to mess with you some. You know, to get information?"

"Well they did that," He grinned again, "I am going to have to go invest in a pair of clean shorts as soon as I get off duty to night. Still it's good to see that you aren't trying to go it all alone. I was worried about you a lil' bit, you know people will do all kinds of stupid things whey they are in love."

"I can understand that sir," I nodded, "Thankfully I didn't do the stupidest thing I wanted to do this morning."

"Get the guy that hurt your girl?" He asked.

"How...?" I blinked at him in surprise.

"You just have that look and feel about you," He shrugged, "I wouldn't want to be him, whoever he is."

"No kidding," I echoed his response from earlier.

"Well," He seemed to have gotten his good humor back, "I SHOULD give you a ticket," He turned to the Dinobots to have some fun out of them this time, "All dinosaurs are supposed to have a license in this city."

"What that mean?" Grimlock got out.

"That mean he send us to pound!" Slash cried, "NO! Don't send Dinobots to pound! Dinobots got to find Aly!"

The cop laughed and shook his head, "Oookay, I'm going to let you off the hook this one time. But next time you come into town and need information, ASK?"

"We ask," Swoop said.

The other three nodded vigorously to confirm this.

"Okay then," The cop turned back to me, "You guys take care of your selves, good luck finding your girl."

I thanked him and watched him walk off back into the shadows to his beat. Thanks to him I now had the information to both find her and the back up to protect her if anyone tried any thing. I motioned for the Dinobots to follow me out of the alley and began telling them what I had found so far and just how we were going to get out there and make sure that this woman we all loved came home safe.


	4. Chapter 4

Runaway: Part 3

Now that I had the Dinobots with me, and now that I had the information that told me where Alyssa might possibly be, I only had one other problem. Her location, that I knew, back up muscle, yah I had plenty of that now too. No the only real problem I was facing was how in the name of Primus I was going to heard SIX Dinobots from Houston, up the interstate, and into Austin TX with out causing major chaos.

The fact that this was going to be a problem became blindingly apparent to me when we reached the suburbs of Houston and all of them scattered in different directions. Apparently I hadn't taken the time, or rather had the time to tell them that I did indeed know where Alyssa was. I knew and I was ready to head that way as soon as I could.

So I was left standing there watching helplessly as they all took off and began ripping the place apart at the seams in a much less than organized fashion.

With no choice I took off after them and began to try and round them up. The problem was, every time I found one and stopped them from what they were doing, two more popped up doing something just as bad and I had to leave the one I was with and go stop them. The Dinobot I had been speaking to promptly took this as an opportunity and took off into the night again the moment I had my back turned. So I was nearly three hours trying to get them all back where I could tell them what I knew.

I finally caught up with Slash and Sludge as they had just finished ripping the roof off of a particular house and were questioning the occupants within. I really did feel sorry for the poor old guy, and I really shouldn't have found it funny. I really shouldn't have, but even the most serious observer would have been forced to admit that this was a classic scene. The poor man was dangling upside down from Sludge's mouth. While he was in the process of doing that, he was also being sniffed in the most intimate manner by another member of the saurian entourage, Slash. She finally finished and lifted her head to look at Sludge.

"This guy not Aly," Grimlock demanded over the Megaraptor's shoulder. "Why we wasting time with him."

"Me Slash say we have to find clues! Just like on Unsolved Mysteries," She paused and gave the man another sniff, "See? So shut trap!"

That statement had the desired effect and the Metal T-Rex shut up. Slash finished with that person for good this time and shook her head at Sludge, who promptly dropped him back onto his lawn and took off into the night with the rest of them to see if they could find more "Clues".

That left me to get the poor guy calmed down and assure him that NO this wasn't the rapture and yes he was going to be fine. It was mostly just a case of over-enthusiasm on the part of my friends. By the time I had all of that finished, yet again the Dinobots had vanished into the Burbs and I was left alone to once more start to track them down.

This unfortunately left me with a lot of time to think about just what had happened and what was going on. I started looking back on what I knew about all that had happened so far. I had spent several nights in my lab looking over all of the information that I could find on what the "Doctor" had done. I still had all the files on what had been done by him to humans once before and so I went over that with a fine-toothed comb. The conclusion that I had come up with was that this was in fact a modified version of the Hypnochip Tech that had been used before. He had made half of the population into zombies for the Decepticons when they had pulled one of their particularly stupid stunts and brought Cybertron into Earth's orbit. However, there were a lot of holes in what the doctor had done then and so there were a lot of holes in this scheme too. The man is not the genius he would like to think himself, most of his tech has one critical flaw that can be exploited. Most of it has no energy shielding of any kind. Taking that into account getting rid of it would be simple enough, it was just a matter of finding the right type of energy, in this case ions, to shut it down.

What I was afraid of is what would happen if Alyssa where to catch sight of me before I managed to shut it down, and completely deactivate the thing. It was imperative to preventing brain damage in her that she not see any one that she believed to be dead. The simple truth is, seeing someone that fell into that classification would start a chain reaction that would lead into madness and eventually death if it wasn't stopped. Up until the moment that I was ready to go forward with the deactivation, she had to believe that I was still dead.

As much as it hurt, as much as all I really wanted to do was to go up to her and throw my arms around her, my scientist side knew better. Besides the pain, or perhaps because of it, I was fully aware that the only way I was going to get her back safe and whole was to stay away from her until I was ready to go forward with it. I was praying to Primus that if Ratchet decided to copy my data and go ahead with the rescue of Miss Angel, that he would understand this. Understand that no matter how cruel it seemed, blindsiding them was the only way that we were going to be able to bring them back successfully.

This is yet another reason that I had wanted to bad to come and do this alone. If I stayed by myself then it would be a simple matter for me to stay hidden until the time was right to take the action that I needed to take. There would be no one to see her, no one to run up to her, and no one to suddenly blurt out the truth to her and ruin that small advantage that we had going for us.

Now I had six of the biggest loudmouths in the whole Autobot army with me. Following me around bound and determined to find this girl if they quite literally had to tear this state off its hinges. If in the whole time this mess had gone on, my hope had ever hit rock bottom. It was right then, I suppose as I searched for them, the Dinobots, my desperation became more and more apparent and began to show in me.

I was about to fly apart from frustration when the powers that govern the universe decided to show me that they really do listen to you on occasion. Just as I was coming to the conclusion that I was never going to be able to find them, Slash decided that she was going to come around the corner and surprise me.

"Guys back over there taking break," She told me, "Me slash come to find out where Wheeljack was an…"

She stopped in mid-sentence and looked down at me. The youngest of the Dinobots was a lot more perceptive than I was willing to give her credit for. She looked me over for a few moments then transformed and shrunk down to human size like I was. Then she plopped down on the sidewalk where I had stopped for the moment. She kept looking at me so intently that I looked up at her and was about to ask what she wanted when she proceeded to tell me.

"Wheeljack miss Aly too?" she blurted.

I stopped; gapped and tried really hard to work my mind around what had just came out of her mouth.

"Say wah?"

"Alyssa," She repeated, "She gone. Wheeljack miss her too?"

And it was just that simple, all of my resolve, all of my hard won emotional armor, all of it came crashing down around my feet and I had to give in to what I was feeling. I put my face in my hands and tried to compose my self.

"Wheeljack miss her too," I was finally able to admit.

It was then yet again that Slash had a surprise for me. She looked at me for one more second and then leaned over to me. She put her arms around me like a little girl hugging her father and then looked at me.

"Slash know," she hugged me a bit tighter, "Wheeljack no have to hide feelings with Slash just because he mech. If Wheeljack want cry, Slash no tell."

I stared at her for a second and then completely fell apart. Every thing I had pent up from the moment we had found the black truck abandoned on that hill side, from the moment I had heard the truth about what had happened; all of it came out in one huge gush. I put my head down on Slash's lap and finally, FINALLY just let everything out. It had to have been a good ten minutes before I got my second wind and was able to look up at the young femme. When I at last did calm down I noticed that she was smiling at me.

"Wheeljack feel better now?" she asked.

"Yah," I had to admit that it did help my clarity to vent some.

"Good," Slash nodded, let go of me and stood up, "Now we go find guys."

She stopped and switched back to her dino mode and then turned to me once again.

"We go find guys, then we go find Aly." She looked off for a second distantly and then turned back to me, "Then no one ever cry again."

I watched her start off and realized that there was really more to these guys that even I had been willing to know. There were facets to them that only something like this crisis with Alyssa could bring out and I was going to have to start respecting them more.

Which led me back to what I was thinking, how was I going to tell the Dinobots that none of them could mention to Alyssa that I was still alive.

I held up my hand and motioned for Slash to come back. She stopped and trotted back to me.

"What else on Wheeljack's mind?" she asked.

"It's about Alyssa," I dropped my voice and made myself very serious, "When we do find her. Slash, you and none of the other Dinobots can tell her that I'm here. She thinks I'm dead. To keep her from being hurt worse you have to not let her know I'm here."

She looked at me and cocked her head to one side, "Slash know, Slash take look at notes. Slash keep mouth shut."

Once again I gapped, I seemed to be doing that a lot tonight.

"Slash make other Dinobots keep mouths shut too. Slash kick skidplates back to Ark if they no keep mouths shut."

There are some definite advantages to having a Megaraptor on your side. She grinned at me, displaying that mouth full of laser-sharpened teeth and then trotted off into the hot darkness of the TX night. I finally shook off the shock and went off to help the girl corral the rest of the Dinobots and get the whole party ready to leave Houston.

I had never expected any of what I had experienced to night to happen to me. All of it had been a complete shock and I was still reeling about most of it. Still I have to say that despite the fact I had found out where she was and that she had been alive. I was on the verge of loosing hope. I was terrified that when I found her she'd be nothing more than a soulless little doll and that the girl I loved would be gone. These six yo-yo's had just shown up out of the blue and proved to me that miracles can happen. That more than anything else had given me the will to keep going. Simply put, the Dinobots had restored my hope.

I had thought that this was the end of my shocks that night. Once I found the rest of my group, things would move along smoothly, and I would be able to accomplish what I had planned. All of us however were in for one more big shock that night. Once again all of us there were going to be faced with a choice about what to do and what the next move we were going to make was.

Slash and I had just found the rest of the Dinobots and we were in the process of stomping and rolling their way down the off ramp, when the next shock hit us. All of our comlinks started going off at the same time and we all stopped and looked to see what the problem was. Prowl's frantic voice sounded over the main channel the Autobots use. It was calling out to everyone that was able to report to duty immediately.

So Megatron's plans were finally exposed. He had taken the girls for revenge, then seeing what would happen. That we would go after them and try and rescue them, he had come to the conclusion that this was the perfect opportunity to strike out against Optimus and take both him and all of those who had gone with him to help out. It could have been that he planed this all from the start, or that he had just taken advantage of the situation. Either way, the bulletin was just now reaching us and it left all of us with a choice to make yet again.

Did we abandon the search for Alyssa and go to help the other Autobots? I knew what I planned to do, it was the only thing I could do considering I had already given up my options for revenge. But I could never, would never presume to speak for the Dinobots or anyone else.

I should have known that it wasn't even going to be a question where they were concerned. Grimlock stopped in mid-stomp and transformed. He glared down at his comlink and made a face behind his own mask.

"Shut up!" he demanded, "Grimlock have own problems!"

It squawked at him again, and he proceeded to become even more pissed. He yanked his comlink off and dropped it on the concrete. He then proceeded to smash it into becoming part of the road with one motion.

"Prime take care of own mess!" he yelled, "Grimlock going after ALY!"

There was a course of agreement from all the rest of the group and a few more comments of the type. Then the next thing I knew, five more comlinks had joined the pile on the ground. Then all of them turned and looked at me. All of them knew what they wanted and what they were going to do. Now they wanted to see my next move.

I pulled off my own comlink and looked at it as Prowl's voice continued to pour forth from it. A few moments later, the citizens of Houston were probably wondering what the explosion was that lit the sky for the next few moments.

I turned to the Dinobots, now sans both my communicator and my missiles and looked at all of them. Then I glanced up one more time to see the rest of the red and orange flower I had set in the heavens fade into nothingness.

When it was all gone, I turned back to them once more.

"Come on guys," I motioned to the road, " let's go find Alyssa."


	5. Chapter 5

Runaway: Part 4

I thought that getting up to Austin, once I had managed to collect the Dinobots, and once all of us were in agreement on what we were going to do, would be a simple matter. I should have known that it wouldn't. I'm an Autobot, and when you are a sentient being of that distinction, it is scientifically impossible for things in your life to go simply.

Now mind you, if I were a human highway patrolman, and I saw a Lancia doing 250 MPH down the interstate followed by a pack of Dinosaurs, I would probably be tempted to do something too. That something though would probably not have been calling into the station house and reporting what I had seen to my higher ups. What they say about Texas and some of the people down there being just a small bit gun-happy turned out to be 100 true.

Twenty minutes after we passed said police officer, I picked up something on the road ahead of me some forty-ish miles away from us. What it was turned out to be one of the biggest road blocks that the state had ever managed to put on. Since someone out there had a clue that it was most likely Autobots that were racing across the desert this way, they had gone and managed to enlist the aid of the state's division of the National Guard as well.

The truth was, with the Dinobots in tow I probably have blown through the road block with little or no problems. But I had other things to do besides this so I thought that maybe it would be better to try and talk to them than just force my way past them. As it was, getting stopped cost me a new set of brake-pads, not to mention causing the Dinobots to wind up sprawled rear end up on the hot Texas pavement. Which to be honest, after Slash doing what she did for me last night, really pissed me off.

I transformed, looked over at the Dinobots and then turned to glare down at those who now felt compelled to hold all of us at gun point.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" I almost growled, "We have somewhere important to be!"

The officer in charge looked up at me and stammered, "We-we were told that you were speeding. After what happened in Kentucky…"

"What happen in Kentucky?" Grimlock having collected himself came and demanded over my shoulder.

"Well …there was a really big battle," he continued, "Half of I-75 was destroyed in the fight."

I didn't really pay that much more attention to him as he said that to me. I was wracking my processor over what was going on. All of the indications were pointing to the fact that what should not have been done in either girl's case, had been done. Because of that now all kinds of havoc was being caused. I was still turning all of the facts in my mind over when I caught one word that confirmed it.

"Wait I a second," I told the officer, "Go back and say that again?"

"Which part?" He asked.

"The part about Optimus Prime," I clarified.

"Oh that," He shrugged, "Apparently he did something really strange. He managed to beat off the Decepticon truck in a game of chicken using some weird power. Prime tossed the other truck right off the bridge."

"Whoa."

Now I had more than a few ideas about what had been done and just how Optimus had managed to pull off a stunt of that magnitude. I would have to have more details in just what had been done and would like to have seen some shots of it to be 100 percent sure. Unfortunately, none of the thoughts I was having about this were positive ones. IF Prime had done what I thought he had, then chances were it had almost killed him.

Grimlock pretty much summed up what was on my mind in his next comment.

"What dumb thing Prime done now?" He griped.

"When I figure it out big fella," I told him, "I'll letcha know."

Normally, I was not this abrasive to the Dinobots or to humans for that matter. Right then however the stupid road block was holding me up. Being held up right then was the last thing I wanted. I knew that seeing her face to face was out of the question, but still just seeing her would help. The longer I waited, the longer I was kept occupied by these people who had over reacted, the longer it would be until I came up with some kind of plan to pull this off. So needless to say, I was just a little bit grouchy with these people.

In the long run that was most likely one of the contributing factors to why they kept us there and talking so long. By the time we finally finished they knew the whole story and it was nearly night fall, which was exactly what I was afraid was going to happen the moment I saw the stupid block on my scanners.

Suffice to say that once it was all over and they had all the answers that they felt that they needed, it was time to set up camp and make plans to finish the trip to Austin the next day. In all honesty I have to admit, I had been running on minimal recharge and the Dino's didn't look that much better. So all of us came to an agreement, found a nice spot in the desert, and called it a night.

When I say that we came to an agreement, I mean I told Slash and she informed the rest of them that we were going to be calling it a night. They were somewhat less than enthused about this to say the very least. One look from Slash however, or rather one look at the claw she had and all of them decided that discretion was the better part of valor in this particular incidence. So a halt was called and camp was set up for the night.

Surprisingly, despite being the ones that had wanted to stay on the road so badly, the Dinobots were the ones that went comatose almost the moment that they went into recharge mode. Once again leaving me alone with my thoughts about what had happened and why . It was just that simple, spite and revenge, and no other reasons than that. What no one had foreseen was the stubborn streak that all Autobots possessed and just how big of a set of Jerks we could be when we didn't get what we wanted.

Something else that kept coming up in my mind was what that cop had told me that Prime had done on that bridge. He had been injured, he had been sans his trailer unit, and still he had MOWED down Motormaster. Not to mention the fact that he had done all of that with someone unconscious in his cab. Was he really that insane? Or was he so much in love that his own life hadn't mattered to him at that point? Had he simply been willing to do whatever it took, to save someone he loved?

Whatever it had been, whatever had happened with Miss Angel, I made up my mind that I was not going to repeat it with Alyssa. She was going to be rescued but she was going to be saved in such away that none of what had happened in Kentucky would be needed. The Decepticons had slipped in and snuck her away. So it was only fair that I snuck in and stole her back to where she belonged.

If what I planned didn't work, if there was no way to shut it off and no way to get her back whole and safe. Then I wouldn't do it. I would spend my life alone rather than cause the one woman in the universe that I loved any more pain. The quintessential lover's choice I suppose. Do you love something enough to set if free?

That was what my processor was going over and over again when I finally managed to drift off to my own state of recharge. That was what my mind wondered about all night as I slept.

That was where my thoughts still were that morning when I was expecting to wake up and get everyone back on the road to Austin. What I was not expecting was to be roused out of my recharge by several audio shattering sonic booms somewhere over my head at around 3000 feet.

The whole group that was with me jumped up and got ready to fight back against whatever it was that had come to attack us. Then all of us felt really stupid as we suddenly noticed that there was nothing there and there was nothing that was going to come after us. There was nothing around us that could have possibly made that sound, at least not yet.

"What go boom?" Slash demanded.

"Me not sure," Grimlock looked around, "Sound like Aerialbots."

Speak of the devil and he will appear, the old earth saying goes. Sure enough out of that brightening blue sky showed up none other than the aforementioned five fliers. I could tell that they had either just came from a fight, or that they hadn't bothered to clean up after the last one because of the condition that they were in.

They landed and walked up to us and I could see that Silverbolt had an expression on his face. IF that look had been blaster fire all of us would probably been nothing more than ashes by that point.

"Silverbolt," I nodded.

"Wheeljack," He continued to glare, "You do realize that you ignored a direct mobilization order."

"I had my reasons," I shot back.

"Maybe those aren't good enough," Air Raid added, "Optimus wasn't too proud to ask for help, you over grown geek. Why are you?"

"All I can say," I repeated, "Is that I had MY reasons."

"You know," Fireflight snarked, "You're not the only one who cares about Miss Alyssa."

"DON'T START!" I snapped, "I'm doing what I have to."

"We didn't come here to argue with you Wheeljack," Silverbolt finally broke in.

"Then what are you here for?"

"Prowl sent us down here to help you and the Dinobots with finding Alyssa. What happened when we located Miss Angel can't be repeated."

"What happened?" I asked.

And then I got the whole story spilled to me. All of the mistakes that I had been so very careful to not make, everything I had been trying to avoid. Every single one of them seemed to have been made in the rescue of Angel. As a result of all of this, now both of them were back at the Ark lying in a pair of comas that there was a good chance that they would never wake up from.

"You have got to be KIDDING ME?"

"No," Silverbolt shook his head, "All of that really happened, though no one was expecting it."

"Well you should have," I snapped again.

Now the rest of my group was starting to get frustrated. As most of the rest of the Autobots know frustrated Dinobots are anything but quiet.

Slash looked down her nose at them, "We no want nosey plane bots help!"

"Plane bots no know how to keep mouth shut!" Swoop chimed.

"Need know how to keep mouth shut!" Snarl put in, "Aly go crazy if she see Wheeljack! Got to keep mouth shut for Aly!"

I turned back to the Aerialbots and crossed my arms, "You heard em."

"Wheeljack," Silverbolt pulled him self up a little bit here, "I don't know where you got the idea that us helping you and the Dinobots was optional, but its not."

"Are you threatening me kid?" I asked.

"It's not a threat, just a simple statement of facts," He shrugged, "We are not leaving."

"And there's nothing you can do to make us." Slingshot smirked.

I don't know if the Aerialbots had ever seen the Dinobots in ticked mode. But that comment was all that it took to turn the ticked switch to on.

Slag stood there for a good five seconds looking like he had been completely frozen. I could literally hear the seconds ticking by in my head until something happened.

Something did.

Silverbolt took one step in my direction and found him self swallowed up in a bright orange fireball that reached all the way from his head down to his feet. It wasn't as hot as Slag could have made it, but it had to be more than a little bit uncomfortable for the SST in question.

While He was screaming at the top of his vocals, Fireflight had the guts to point at me and start mouthing off on his own.

"YOU TRAITOR!"

I suppose he really didn't deserve what I did to him. I was however, at my wits end and at the time that needle shell seemed like a really, really good way to shut the brat up. I really was sorry later, honestly. He just struck me the wrong way earlier with his crack about my not being the only one who cared about Alyssa, and well I suppose I was just a tiny bit stressed.

While all of that was going on, Sludge and Snarl were having their own time of things with Skydive and Air Raid. It was something like watching a rubber ball being mauled by an overactive puppy. The only problem being that the puppies in this case out weight-classed the ball by about three hundred times.

Then in the middle of all of that was poor Slingshot, the mech who learned that there are things in this world that you just don't do. Much to his chagrin he found out the hard way that one of these things to not do was pissing off Slash. It's particularly bad if you don't like being knocked down, chased, and rolled around in the dirt. Then let up, chased some more, knocked down again and finally chewed on mercilessly until you are screaming uncle at the top of your vocals.

I think it was safe to say that between my own temper tantrums, all of us got the message across that we wanted to be left alone. Once the Aerialbots pried Slingshot loose and got everyone gathered up they were more than willing to leave. I hate to think that this was the only way that we could have gotten them to leave. Unfortunately I think it was. Once they were all gone we gathered together and to make the next move.

I noticed that Slash had her head down and looked about ready to cry.

"What's wrong Slash?"

"Slash not want hurt Slingshot," She told me sadly, "He just saying mean things. Slash just loose temper."

"That okay," Grimlock chimed in, "We do that all time."

"But…" She looked at me, "Slash hear that when Dinobots first made and they hurt someone accidentally, they took off line. Slash not going to be taken offline for biting Slingshot, Is Slash?"

"US TOO!" Sludge added.

All of the others added their support to this and I could see the girl brighten just a bit.

"Slash just…" She trailed off.

I walked over and gave her a hug, after what she had done for me two nights ago, I was never going to let anything happen to her.

"Don't worry," I smiled, "You ready to go?"

She perked up, "Yah. Slash want go find Aly now."

I nodded and motioned to the road. A few moments later we were all out back on the way to finding the missing girl. This time I was praying that there would be nothing to get in our way and that maybe, finally, we could do what had to be done, and bring the poor girl home at last.


	6. Chapter 6

Runaway: Part 5

After all the tribulations that we had to go through to get up to this city you would think that I would have been relieved that we had made it this far and that we were now, quite literally, in sight of our goal. I was in my alt-mode and all of us were waiting across the road from the place that we had been told Alyssa worked.

The object of this endeavor at this point was to stay down as long as possible and wait for the perfect moment to do what had to be done. Which of course when you have six dinosaurs with you can prove to be some what problematic, to wit, all of them were shrunk down to the size of large cats or small dogs and all of them were perched in my back windshield making me wish to Primus that I hadn't gone in for the leather upholstery. Still it was doing what needed to be done, keeping them out of the way until she finally showed.

Strangely enough it didn't turn out to be as long of a wait as any of us had originally thought it would. No, right at eight am she pulled up in the car borrowed from the place and clocked into work. I pulled slowly around to the back where I could watch her as she went through the prep work on the cars and try and decide what would be the best time to use the ion charge on her.

It should have been the simplest thing in the world. Find the girl, drop the charge, and head for the nearest hospital so I can get the stupid implant out of her. Remember what I said before about nothing being simple for Autobots? Yet again my pet theory that Primus has a sick sense of humor proved its self right. It did this by allowing Slash to discover how the door locks on my passenger section worked. All the rest of them were perched up there watching her, routinely shoving one another off the spot in favor of taking the best watching place for themselves.

At some point during all of this Slash hit the passenger seat with a soft thud and lay there looking up at my roof between her claws before she finally thought of something else to try.

Lots of times there have been people who have attested to me just how dumb the Dinobots are. To which I now have to reply, you try spending a weekend with them moron.

Slash looked over at the shiny handle on the door and sunk into deep thought for a second. She had seen these things before and she knew that if she thought about it long enough she would remember just what to do with it. Turns out she was right. She sat there, then got a huge grin on her face and sat up. She smacked down the handle and slowly eased the door open. Then something else occurred to her, something that would allow her to be the first person to get to see Aly, whether the guys liked it or not.

I noticed that something strange was going on when I felt the door lock on my passenger side slide down. Next thing I knew there was a grinning mini-mega raptor hanging off of my door and five more Dino's of various types trying to get out there and get to her. She gave them a slightly vulgar hand gesture and then scampered off to where Alyssa had just pulled the water hose out of the rack.

I suffered countless claw marks and insults as the Raptor sat there with her tail swishing waiting for the girl to notice her. Alyssa however was either blissfully engrossed in her work, or was working so hard that she wouldn't have to stop and let her mind wander. So Slash sat there for a good five minutes before she started to get impatient and started doing things to get the girl's attention. Slowly but surely it finally registered with Alyssa that there was someone behind her and they wanted acknowledgement really, really badly. She put down the water hose and turned around to face her "Stalker."

She brandished the squeegee like a weapon and turned to face whoever was there.

"What do you want you Slimy….!" She froze.

"Slash not slimy?" Slash blinked, "Aly thinking of someone else."

The window cleaner clattered to the ground and the girl sat down in front of the raptor with a soft thud. She blinked her eyes a few times and actually had to rub them and shake her head to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

"SLASH?" Alyssa gasped.

"That me," The raptor grinned and bounced over to where Alyssa was now sitting. "Aly miss Slash?"

The girl suddenly threw her arms around the tiny dino and hugged her with all her might.

"Oh Slash!" She was almost in tears at this point, "I missed you so much!"

"Slash want see Aly," She said softly, "So….So Slash runaway and come find. Slash no want Aly to be all alone."

The girl looked down at the critter in her arms for a moment and burst into fresh tears. It broke my heart to just sit there and watch as she poured this torrent out over me but right then, there wasn't anything I could do until the time was right.

She shook her head at Slash, "but I am all alone Slash. He's gone and I'm going to be alone forever now."

On the verge of tears her self now Slash rubbed her head against Alyssa and sighed. She was just happy to have her friend back where she could see her and would probably have liked nothing more than to continue to sit there and be cuddled on for the rest of her life. The problem was that wasn't what we had come here to do and Lil' Slash realized it.

She turned to look at me and the rest of the guys, looking directly at me. I knew what she was saying, she was telling me to get ready to do what must be done. Slash sat there for a moment and let Alyssa cry into her, then suddenly took action. She started wiggling and sprung loose from the girl. Then scuttled under the car and waited for what she knew would happen next.

"SLASH!"

Alyssa promptly forgot everything else and went about trying to get the Raptor out from under the car. She got down on her hands and knees and eventually had to lay flat so that she could stick her hands under there and do her best to try and get hold of Slash. This of course put her in exactly the position I needed her in, away from me and distracted enough to not notice when I disgorged my load of Dinobots and transformed.

She had just succeeded in getting her hands on Slash and pulling her out when I was finally ready. She still had her back to me and was looking down at the Mini-raptor she now had in her arms.

"What in the world was that Slash?" She looked at her, "Why did you try to hide under there."

Slash simply looked up at Alyssa with two huge eyes and shook her head sadly.

"Slash sorry, Aly."

"For…" She began.

Then it was done.

Alyssa froze for a few moments, just standing there as still as possible and finally collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap. I stood there for a few seconds myself like I was under some kind of spell but finally managed to break it as I saw the Dinobots begin to head in the direction of the girl sprawled on the pavement that was still cold from last night.

It felt like it had taken hours, like we had sat there all day and waited for this to happen. The truth was it hadn't taken more than thirty minutes at the most and we still had the whole day ahead of us.

I made it over to her and found her there on the ground, other than the slight scorch mark on the back of her shirt she looked like she was sleeping. She even had Slash under one arm and the shrunk Dino-bot was curled up like some stuffed animal. If not for the fact that I knew the truth about what was going on it would have been sweet. But it wasn't, it was probably the most traumatic thing I had ever seen in my whole life.

As I stood there trying to get up the will to move I had no idea that the very people I had chased off, those back at the base had taken steps to help me out of this mess I had gotten myself into. When I heard the sirens though, something in my mind suddenly clicked and I realized what needed to be done.

I was about to grab her and head off to the nearest hospital when the ambulance rounded the corner and a pack of paramedics piled out. While I gapped they proceeded to herd the Dinobots out of the way and go to work on my Alyssa the moment they arrived.

"Looks like the Autobot's in shock too sir!" One of them called out as he looked me over.

"Sir?" The chief of the team asked me, "Do you need some help too?"

"How…." I was too shocked to get out a full sentence.

"Yesterday our hospital received a call from the acting leader of the Autobots," He motioned off in the direction of where he had come from, "All of those in the area did for that matter."

"Prowl did that?" I gasped in shock.

This type of stunt usually isn't Prowl's style; this kind of thing smacks more of desperation, not logic.

"He told us that in the next twenty four hours we would receive a call from him or some one else with instructions about coming to your and the young lady's aid."

All I could do was stand there and continue to gape. I wasn't ready for any of this and I wasn't prepared to handle it. For all the use I was being right then I may as well have not been there as they finally got her ready and loaded her into the back of the ambulance.

"Sir," The chief got my attention again, "We were also given detailed instructions from the head medic of your organization about how to treat the girls injuries. She's in the best of hands, there's no need to worry."

"I…" I shook my head, "I'm sorry sir. I am grateful for your help, just a bit shocked."

"I thought so," He seemed to understand, "But we will take the best of care of the young lady. If you and your companions would like to follow us back to the hospital?"

"Yes sir, I would like that very much."

So I gathered up the Dinobots and followed them as they all packed it in and headed back the way they had come. I followed them in numbed silence but eventually I got my mind around what had happened. As hard as it was the main point was that she was safe now and in the hands of someone who could help her.

Which left me sitting on a bench in the waiting room wondering how long it was going to be until they finally told me that I could see her, how much longer I would have to wait until I could talk to her again with out fear. Which of course led me back to wondering just how Prowl had known, or for that matter had been willing to set all of this up for me. I had nothing on my hands but time right then so I did the only thing I could do to satisfy myself about this point.

I walked off and left the Dinobots clustered there, and I called up Prowl in the only way I could manage since I had blasted my com to scrap. I found a pay-phone, hunkered down and dialed the number to the base.

I got lots of jokes courtesy of the twins when they found me on the line but eventually I managed to get rid of them and get Prowl on the other end of the stupid thing.

"Hello there Wheeljack," he answered back.

"Hey Prowl," I trailed off not knowing how to go about asking this.

He saved me the trouble.

"You're calling to find out how the EMT's knew to come and help you and Alyssa?" he asked.

"Yes," I got out.

"It's quite simple really," He informed me, "I called them and told them to be ready, just as they informed you."

"Why Prowl?"

"What do you mean why?" now he seemed shocked.

"Why did you send me help? It's not like you," I clarified.

"How so?" He shot back.

"Well there's not one bit of logic in any of this," I sighed and rubbed the back of my head, "Your processor must be about to pop."

"You said there was no logic in my actions?" Now he sounded offended, "What I did was perfectly logical."

"Com…" I didn't get to finish that question because he promptly cut me off.

"Simple, I want the chief engineer of the Autobots back here fulfilling his duties," He told me, "The problem is, that you will not come back here until your situation with Alyssa has been satisfied. So the best way to meet those requirements was to expedite your recovering your contact with her."

In some strange way that all made sense, but I was still mostly in shock because of all of this so I couldn't manage much of an answer to any of that. Again Prowl kept me from having to say much of anything.

"Listen, just because I think logic works," I could actually hear him smile, "It doesn't mean that I don't understand emotion too. Take care of her okay? Then get your skid plate home as fast as you can, we're going to need your help since Prime and Angel have left."

"Okay that you're gonna have to tell me about." I answered.

"Don't worry," he I could hear him grin again, "I fully intend to. See you when you get back, Wheeljack."

The line clicked off and now I was just left to wait and see what was going to happen. I knew that Ratchet wouldn't make mistakes about this, and that these doctors here were the best. Still, some kind of feeling of dread hung over me that I couldn't name.

All I could do now was hope for the best and pray that all of it turned out in the end.


	7. Chapter 7

Runaway: Epilogue

It's over. It's all over now and there's nothing more I can do but what I am doing.

Drive back to the Ark and pray that I can find some way to go on with my life now that this has happened.

Maybe I was too rash in the way I handled it. I guess Prime knew what he was doing after all when he chose how he was going to pull off his rescue. Still I had thought that it would hurt her worse living with a hole in her mind and heart, I had no idea that sometimes Ignorance really was bliss.

The doctor came out of the ER and told me that it had gone perfectly. That she would be waking up in the next couple of hours and that I could go and see her as soon as she was conscious. All I could think about was how happy I was going to be to see her. How much I wanted to hold her in my arms and tell her that I would never let her go again. How sorry I was for not protecting her. How happy I was that we were finally back together.

It wasn't to be that way.

The doctor came and told me that she was awake and that I could go and see her now if I liked. So of course I rushed to her room the moment the words left the man's lips. I pulled open the door and saw her there on the bed, in the white gown with a soft white bandage around her head.

"Alyssa!" I said as I moved over towards her.

That was when I caught it, a look in her eyes that nearly floored me. For about ten seconds she was happy, she was the happiest to see me that she had ever been in the whole time I had known her. Then the next thing I knew the woman had flown into a rage.

She flung her self out of the bed, tore the IV out of her arm and slapped me so hard on the side of the face that I stumbled back. It hadn't really hurt me, but it had caught me off guard and I was completely stunned. She let out a long scream at me that sounded like the very essence of heart break and then proceeded to come after me again.

I stood there in shock and made no move to stop her.

She flailed and pounded on me with tiny delicate fists that in truth could never really hurt me, at least not physically. She screamed more and now those wails were interspersed with racked sobs. The girl was practically breaking down right there in front of me and there wasn't a dammed thing I could do to stop her.

"YOU JERK!" She pounded me again, "HOW DARE YOU!"

She finally ran out of steam and stepped back collapsing on to the bed.

"How dare you come here," She weakly gasped, "How dare you come here and torment me more."

"Torment you?" I finally managed, "how… how am I tormenting you?"

"How," She looked up at me from where she was on the bed, "You came back! THAT'S HOW!"

"I … don't…"

"Don't understand," She snarled, "What's not to understand! You were dead! I saw you die! At least I thought I did, and then there you are, real, alive."

"I thought you'd be happy?" If I had been shot, if I had been killed and woke up in the Matrix itself, I couldn't have been more shocked.

She shook her head and looked away from me, "Maybe I should, maybe a stronger woman would be able to 'Jack. But I just can't."

She rolled away from me and buried her face in her pillow.

"It's just too hard."

I stood there for a few more moments trying very hard to think of something to say to this girl that I had come to love with all my heart and spark. In the end there was nothing I could say. The nurse came into the room and saw the state that she was in and proceeded to hustle me out into the hall, telling me that I was disturbing the patient and if I did not stop she would have me removed.

That was the final blow. I had done this to her, I had ruined the life that she had been trying to rebuild. For all intents and purposes, she would have been better off if I WERE dead.

I couldn't take it then. I headed out of the hospital and spent the night parked out in the lot trying to decide what to do with both my life and my feelings. Morning came and I still hadn't come to any conclusions. I shouldn't have tried; it seemed that Alyssa had come to one for both of us.

Slash appeared, still in her shrunk down form, holding a white letter in her mouth. Apparently the femme Dinobot was the only person that Alyssa was talking to at this point and she had sent the girl out with her sentiments to me. I transformed and changed my size so I could read the letter. Wondering what she had to say to me, but not daring to hope that she had found it in her heart to call me back.

It was a simple message and I managed to read through it very quickly. It didn't say what I had really wanted it to. However it didn't cut me out of the girl's life completely either.

_My Dearest 'Jack,_

_I am truly sorry that I yelled at you yesterday. I know that none of this was your fault and that you honestly wanted to help me. The truth is, I don't know what kind of help I really need. I know that I DO still love you, but I just can't face it not right now. All I can tell you is that some day I may be able to come back to you. Someday maybe I will find enough strength to face everything. Until then I don't want you to grieve or wait for me. Go back to the Autobots and go on with Your life. I will always love you; I just don't need you right now. All I ask is for time, give me that and when I can I will make my choice._

_Until then,_

_Alyssa._

And so, that was that. She told me the truth and I was grateful as I could be. I had done all I could for her and She knew that it had been done out of love. Looking back now though I wonder if I really DID do it out of love? Or was it out of selfishness? Am I just as bad as the person that hurt her in my own way? Trying to possess her rather than letting her find her own way back. Am I no better than Archeville? Oh I know what she would tell me, but I have to wonder. Still the past is the past and you can't change it. The chip did have to come out some way, and this was the only way to do it and leave her as whole as I could.

The rest of the healing is up to her. She has to do this on her own strength. The same as I had to put myself in gear and pull away from that parking lot. It was hard for me and it will be hard for her. Unlike Alyssa however, I DO think she has the strength to save herself. Maybe we all would have been better if I had counted on that strength instead of trying to over-think things. Maybe Prime knew what he was doing after all.

I finally pull out of the city for good, heading back to Oregon. A part of my spark will stay here though. It will stay here with her until she makes up her mind what she really wants and needs. I'll wait for you forever, my little Runaway.

I'll wait until you realize that you don't have to run anymore, ever again.

Author's notes: Well folks, I am so sorry this sucker took me so long to finish. Halfway through my grandma passed away on me. Then I started a new job and got more hours than I can name dumped on my shoulders. Hopefully the next story will go more smoothly.

The song that inspired this story is called "Runaway" and was by Dale Shannon originally, Gary Allen of late. If anyone out there wants the Lyrics just mail me.

Yours always,

RP1


End file.
